Court of Justice Under Attack: Criticism of Case C-144/04

The former President of Germany, Roman Herzog, and Lüder Gerken of the Centre for European Policy have launched recently a strongly worded attack against the Court of Justice.

You can read a summary here. The full article is available here or here.

They begin their article thus:

"Judicial decision-making in Europe is in deep trouble. The reason is to be found in the European Court of Justice (ECJ), whose justifications for depriving member states of their very own fundamental competences and interfering heavily in their legal systems are becoming increasingly astonishing. In so doing, it has squandered a great deal of the trust it used to enjoy.
Hence, it is only logical that the German Federal Constitutional Court recently decided to intervene. Very soon it will have to render a judgement that will be of fundamental importance for the further development of European jurisdiction, since it concerns the question of whether the excessive legal practice of the ECJ should in future once again be subject to stricter controls by the German Federal Constitutional Court, or whether the Federal Constitutional Court should resign once and for all from its watchdog position."